how many S1s still exist!!

[theskillsgap]

Question for the masses,

I have now had my yellow green dialled S1 for 6 years and have only ever seen 4 other S1s in the history of the car.

A yellow car at Donnington about 3 years ago, and Nigels car, the white one as used in Classic and Sports car to go to Monte carlo, and the yellow car sold recently by sportscars Uk for about

[Paul C]

Theres a few others i can add to that

There's two black S1's and one red (quite faded) that get to the Castle combe day

each year. Paul Godfrey and Ken Baird bring their White S1's to a lot of our meets,

and we have Marc (gpz900r on this forum) who has just bought a white S1!

Yay! more white knights!

And there's a few S1's here too, positively common really...

http://www.lotusespritworld.co.uk/owners_Giugiaro.html

[Loose Cannon]

Every now and again one will be exhumed out of some barn or garage somewhere, usually with only about 38k miles. This must be all they were capable of before some frustrated former owner walled them up for their sins umpteen years ago!

I have not seen the 2 black and the red one Paul mentions, but there are the three white ones that are on LEW along with Gordon Masson's lovely red car.

There is also a red one near Hereford and an orange one in London, neither owner being active on the forums.

An orange one is being restored, in Wales I think, but the owner says he will be painting it white (boo hiss!)

The yellow one you saw at Donington 3 years ago and the 14k "magic-miracle-disappearing-mileage" example are one and the same car, but there is another yellow low mileage one that regularly appears in mags that surfaced atabout the same time (with 38k miles if I remember, wahey!)

[Paul C]

Here's one of the black S1's

Some people would cry at that

but i kinda like it, specially the rims

[WayneB]

Paul C, rims good Spoiler bad Know of existance of 4 S1s in Ontario alone! Maybe as there desirability and value rises, more of the codged up old Knackers will be properly restored to their former glory As they are the most beautiful of all the Esprits B) Wayne 83 Turbo Edited April 20, 2005 by WayneB

[Jussi]

Yep, rims are good B) but that spoiler is awful....I feel sick

[gpz900r]

EMAIL EXCHANGES FROM LOTUS ABOUT CARS - And as we know the front spoiler was fitted by the previous owner! Its officail, she really is an S1 yeeharrrr

Marc

As there is only one S2 feature on your car (and this may be a retro-fit),

one has to say it is an S1. May be some S1 models were left to be finished

after the Christmas shut down, production was around 10 per week at that

time.

134 Esprits were built in 1976, and 580 in 1977, a total of 714. As 718 S1s

were built this suggests that four were completed in early 1978.

Interestingly, under the odd system in place at the time, your car shares

its unit number with a federal car: 77/06/0326H, built in June 1977! The

suffix 'H' denotes a federal car, your suffix 'G' denotes a domestic/euro

car.

Regards, John

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: "Hostler, John" <JHostler@lotuscars.co.uk>

> To: "'Marc Bradley www.smoothbeer.com'" <gpz900r@gpz900r.plus.com>

> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 11:06 AM

> Subject: RE: Group Lotus General Enquiry

>

>

> > Marc, yes a bit mysterious! What does the rear valence look like?

> > The front spoiler is certainly S2, but I am not sure if the bodyshell

> > moulding was modified for the later spoiler. how does yours look? You

> are

> > correct about the intakes on the rear quarters. It is not beyond belief

> > that

> > it left the factory with a mix of features, as it is so close to the

> > change

> > point! What type are the tail lamps?, these also changed I believe.

> >

> > Regards, John

> >

> >> >>

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[oo7lotus]

hi Justin,

I have a S1 white 77070257G its been off the road since 91 but I have spent the last 2 years restoring and it will be ready for this summer! B)

[Mark Blanchard]

Marc,

From the LEW ad, yours has got the Fiat X19 rear lights on the car and it looks like no air intake behind the rear windows. That's an S1 alright.

[ChadD]

Hey there. New to the forum, but I had to add my voice to the chorus.

I've got a 1977 Esprit S1, White (see avatar). Bought it two years ago just outside of Washington DC. The original owner had died and his son was selling it on eBay. It was rightly tore up and hadn't been driven since the early 90's. It was sitting outdoors uncovered ever since. My father and I have had it at the family body shop ever since.

We've got the engine purring and the body sparkling. Just need to re-upholster the interior and get the bloody headlamp pod motor working and it'll be tip top. Now that it's spring again I hope to have this done soon. Although I haven't checked yet I think that the Clutch cylinder blew when I was taking it around the block last week. One more thing to fix I guess......

More than happy to trade notes/photos with any other restoring Giugiaro Esprits!

[WayneB]

Hi Chad, welcome to white car division of forum! Are you going to redo interior in correct Tartan Material? Is difficult to do , but really cool looking and so 70s : B) Good Luck, Wayne 83 Turbo

[Guest Troy Halliday]

What size rims do you recon they are?

I have been looking into getting another sset from Splitrims their billet 85's are similar to the BBS alloys and go up to 17". I will be painting the hub gold to match the graphics . Not sure if I should recon my old ones (polihed rim, gold hub) or get some new wheels which will make it easier to get tyres. They also do a Cast hub DM which is the same shape.

Any opinions. I will be keeping the originals in case the next owner wants to put them back on as with alll the minor mods I am doing (please note I will not be adding a spoiler

[ChadD]

Impossible for me to find the exact original material, but I found somthing damn close in almost the same color of grey. It's so close that I"m keeping the original fabric on the rear wall and just re-doing the center console, ceiling, dash, and doors.

Speaking of more to fix..... Good news is that I didn't blow the clutch cylinder. Looks to just be a hose, but I'll have it put up on a lift later this week to know for sure.

Bad news:

1. One of the microswitches on the headlamp motor pod is broken. I guess I have to replace the entire motor now since I don't know if just replacing the microswitch is possible.

2. All the running lights on the right hand side of the car and the radio died. My workshop manuel was no help with the radio, but it says that one fuse handles the right hand side exterior lights. Unfortunatly, it neglects to mention which fuse. Not that it matters since I swapped them all to no effect. Never realized how hard it is to come by 35 amp glass fuses.

Sigh.......... Anyone wanna buy an Esprit S1? (joking, I haven't given up yet....)

[WayneB]

Hey Chad, one of my headlamp motors went bad on my 83. At first it could be coaxed into working by belting it with the wrong end of a screwdriver! Eventually even this hi-tech method failed to work ,so I removed the motor and took it to a electrical motor builder I know. He found a new microswitch and installed it for $45 cdn. He said it was a generic part(the microswitch). If your car has TR7 type motors this could work for you. As for wiring I would make sure grounds to affected components are absolutely clean and corrosion free. Bad grounds can cause all sorts of wierd component failures on these cars. Hope this helps Wayne

[Guest Troy Halliday]

If the motors are the TR7 units give these people a try Robsport I just got two reconditioned units for my S3. They cost

[gpz900r]

Hey chad, Stu has just ripped all the interior out of his S1, where did you get the close match for the fabric etc?

[ChadD]

A local Baltimore Auto upholstry place had it in a catalog. I just picked the swatch that closest resembled the samples I had from my S1 and got lucky.

I don't remember the name of the fabric off the top of my head, but I'll try to stop by the shop this week and get the name of the material I bought. I don't know if this is cheap or expensive by auto standards but a single ream of the stuff cost about $100 U.S.

Hey chad, Stu has just ripped all the interior out of his S1, where did you get the close match for the fabric etc?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[ChadD]

Hey Troy,

My brother has been bit with the Esprit bug and is about to make a bid on the following from eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...4545163559&rd=1

From the stills, I told him it looks like a good deal since our family body shop can work out all the cracking fiberglass problems for close to no money and the engine seems sound, but I wanted to get the opinion of an S3 owner. What do you think of it?

[gpz900r]

Hey thanks for that, didnt realise until I looked that your in the states!

Thought you were up late!

Marc

A local Baltimore Auto upholstry place had it in a catalog.  I just picked the swatch that closest resembled the samples I had from my S1 and got lucky. 

I don't remember the name of the fabric off the top of my head, but I'll try to stop by the shop this week and get the name of the material I bought.  I don't know if this is cheap or expensive by auto standards but a single ream of the stuff cost about $100 U.S.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Guest Troy Halliday]

From what I can see it doesn't look to bad. If as you said you can take care of the bodywork problems then tha is a massive chunk of the wok/money out of the way. The interior will obviously need a bit of work. You could possbly cut down the cost of the interior by having the seats and centre panel retrimed and spray the whole interior to match. New carpets and headliner and it would look ok.

I'm not sure what your brothers income is like but these little bueties can eat a whole in the deepest of pockets pretty quickly. If he can view it first I would strongly recommend it. As for the price I don't know what the going rate for one is in the states so you'll have to decide for yourself if it is cheap or not.

I've had a lot of fun doing mine but I have gone just a little over the top. I have replaced or reconed everything on the car. I have found it is the little bits that eat burn the money. The sort of things you pay no attention to such as bonet/tailgate rubbers at

[plumdeplakmuis]

Anybody know the latest Esprit S1 ever build. (probably end of may 1978)

I like to purchase the latest S1.

I'm considering 78020341G for purchase For Euro6.500.

But the engine worries me. And i'm a little afreight that if

a wait longer, the car is getting rarer and getting a lot more expensive.

Anybody some advise?

Cars i know of.

1 whit/pearl 1977 federal Esprit, with red and black leather seats.

Last seen in Holland near The Hague

1 Red example 78020341G Lhd

Near Amsterdam

1 yellow S1 recently in Belgium

[jimmybondi]

If the yellow one was near Aartselaar / Antwerp

I have checked that one some years before and the overall condition was desperate. Seller did not look very trustful either.

But hey, this was 3 years ago...

1 yellow S1 recently in Belgium

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Edited June 30, 2005 by jimmybondi

[slade]

To answer the thread title, one more

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAP...4559310712&rd=1

1 Red example 78020341G Lhd

Near Amsterdam

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow... that's some body kit on that thing

slade

Edited June 30, 2005 by slade

[wolf]

I have bought my Esprit S1 in January 2004.

It looked good outside, but .......

...... a few hours after my first testdrive I chose to restore the car completely.

In December 2005 I hope to finish the work and start driving again next year.

Esprit today

[gpz900r]

Oh mate that is going to be just fantastic, I really mis mine, you just dont get that bond feeling in anything else

[Loose Cannon]

Nice garage too!